


The Hollow Men

by parsniffs



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (not a lot tho), Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Collaboration, Depression, Duelling, During Canon, Existentialism, F/M, Repressed Memories, Suicidal Thoughts, but like. mostly just with who was present at the duel, depressed alexander hamilton, follows actual history more than the play, suicidal alexander hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10025897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsniffs/pseuds/parsniffs
Summary: He's made it through a hurricane, the war, Thomas Jefferson's campaign... This feeling is nothing new, but as Hamilton lay bleeding the thought still scares him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To The End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923039) by [SailorChibiChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibiChibi/pseuds/SailorChibiChibi). 



> I do not own the show Hamilton, so the majority of quotes in flowy italics are not mine.  
> mmmmmmm titled after that one really deep T.S Eliot poem I love so much.
> 
> written for SailorChibiChibi's series "He Couldn't Alexander Handle It"

“Don’t be shocked when your history book mentions me!” Alexander Hamilton had proclaimed arrogantly long long ago, brimming with energy and ego. He had been younger back then. Maybe some would say stupider, though Hamilton never felt like he’d gotten any smarter. How long ago had he said that? It felt like decades.

Now, he lay slumped against a tree with his physician rushing all about him. Alex sat staring at his bloodied shirt and wondered, what exactly had he meant by that?

They were his own words, he should have known what they meant as soon as they came out of his mouth. _Before_ they came out of his mouth. As a politician, Hamilton should have learned how to watch his words carefully. He never quite got that part down. And from the looks of things right now, it seemed as though he’d never get the chance to.

Although, if Hamilton had not been shot by Burr, if it had been Hamilton who had won the duel by some miraculous miscalculation on his part, or if they had truced like Hamilton secretly prayed for... if it had been Alex who was given the chance to grow older, would he really better himself? What would he do if he got more time?

Time, ha. It seemed the man was always running out of it.

It was only a matter of time before Alexander was killed, everyone knew that. No, not before he died, but _killed._ Before he annoyed someone to the point of no return and they snapped on him. Most people had probably considered being the one to snap many times—maybe even some of his friends had.

_“I’ll pull the trigger on him, someone load the gun and cock it.”_

...But none of them actually had. Aaron Burr had been the first person brave enough to put an end to a coward’s life.

A coward, what a cruel and ironic way to describe himself. Alexander Hamilton had tried to live his life around fighting for others and doing what’s right. Had he accomplished all that? He was so obsessed with not throwing away his shot that he forgot why he had even been given one.

But what would Burr know? Opportunities flew past that man everyday and he barely ever tried to go for them!

 _The one time he did,_ Alex thought bitterly, _it ruined my father-in-law’s life._

If anyone were to be a selfish coward, it would be Aaron Burr.

However… he _had_ killed Alexander. He was the one that challenged the duel and set it up. It was Burr that made the first move in what they had both threatened to do. In a sense, _wasn’t_ Alex and coward? He feared death. It was hard to admit, especially for someone with the pride of his size, but Alexander Hamilton was afraid of dying.

It had always been there for as long as he could remember. From an early time, Alexander realized he was going to die like everyone around him.

He could deny it while he was still breathing, so he did. The roses in the garden outside his house wilted and he pretended that they hadn’t. And he was still breathing now, even if it turned Burr and Pendleton’s worried faces into blurry dots and burned his lungs. He could still pretend. And he would.

_“I swear your pride will be the death of us all.”_

Hamilton shuddered.

(Maybe only the death of one.)

He winced as cracked lips parted to reveal a fading whisper, Alexander mumbling, “If I see it coming for me, should I run or let it be?”

The physician, Dr. Hosack, stuttered in his movements as he dug hastily through his medical bag, caught off-guard by voice from his patient. He squinted at Hamilton. “S… see what, Sir?”

“Is this where it gets me?” Alex tried to keep his voice steady, but it almost came out in a fearful whine.

But the doctor couldn’t understand no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he _thought_ he wanted to.

Hamilton could assure him he didn’t. (Shouldn’t.) It was hard to understand and made Alex’s already-aching head pound harder.

If he saw death coming, should he accept that it’s his time to go? If he could fight it in anyway possible, should he?

_“You keep out of trouble and you double your choices.”_

His back was up against the wall now. (A tree, literally.) He felt there was only one option.

In a way, he was a little intrigued. Wasn’t it… interesting?

No one knows what it feels like to just _stop breathing_ one day. To watch your wounds stop bleeding. No one knows what it feels like to have your pain come to a thunderous roar causing blistering screams and leaving the lungs gasping, only to suddenly stop along with everything else. It was like a little secret that no living person was in on. And Hamilton hated to not be in on secrets.

He hated _not knowing,_ being a novice at any subject. He felt incompetent just by not knowing what it felt like to die. Not knowing anything important. And this was important, wasn’t it? Alex was balancing on the edge of it right now. What could be more important than his future? And the man didn’t even know what was about to happen.

_“You’ve kept me from the room where it happens for the last time.”_

Suddenly, Hamilton understood. He understood Burr for the first time since they had met and bonded over the loss of their parents. He realized.

No! He didn’t! He was being stupid! There was nothing to understand here. Dying is not akin in the slightest to an exclusive business meeting.

Imagine dying, leaving behind friends and family, everyone who relied on and looked up to him, just for knowledge. To be “in” on the secret of death. Alexander wanted to know what it felt like to be swallowed up by the emptiness that was waiting outside his life just as Burr had wanted to feel important and be “in” on the government plans.

(But… they couldn’t _really_ be compared on the same level, could they?)

Sometimes he thought he caught a glimpse of the impending darkness out of the corner of his eye. He’d turn his head to look at it, to gape at it mindlessly, but it would always vanish right before his eyes focused. Gone, just like that.

~~Just like him.~~

Just like a candle being snuffed.

The only way he knew it had been there was because he remembered it. It haunted his thoughts, unfortunately. It stained his mind. He wished he could remember to ignore it.

Well, he wished he could remember a lot of things.

God! Would anyone remember Hamilton after he left? Sure, there was Eliza, but would she _want_ to remember him? After what he did to her, with the foolish affair—how much of an idiot was Hamilton really? to give up his beautiful wife Eliza for an affair?—would she have fond memories to share?

Who else could remember him? Who else would _want_ to?

Burr stood in the background, a blurry figure through Hamilton’s strained eyes, his gun held limply at his side as he anxiously watched the doctor get the loser of the duel patched up.

“Patched up” being an understatement. There was so much gauze and blood and needles. The physician was putting so much effort into saving Hamilton even though he didn’t deserve it.

With a bloodstained hand, Alexander waved Dr. Hosack away. He didn’t need the help. There was no point. He was going to die here, on this stupid side of the stupid river, leaning against this stupid little tree, staring into his stupid killer’s face. The doctor spared Alex a confused glance before trying to proceed with the treatment again. This time, Alex shooed him away more forcefully.

“Go,” he managed to cough out hoarsely. “I’m a lost cause. Let me die. Leave this site and protect your innocence. Save someone else, someone more worthy of their life.”

“Hamilton, sir,” insisted Dr. Hosack, but Alex turned to look him straight in the eyes, struggling to focus on the physician’s face.

“My life was in the hands of Aaron Burr, and he has won. I shot into the air and he shot into my lung.” Alexander restrained himself from glaring at Burr out of the corner of his eye, not out of respect, but because he knew it would hurt his head more. “I deserve what I have gotten here today.”

The doctor blinked rapidly and slowly stood to his feet, waving Nathaniel Pendleton over. Hamilton’s right-hand man. The one he chose to come with him, to support him, and to ultimately watch him die. They began muttering to each other, hands clasped together in concern breaking only to wipe the sweat off their dripping brows and shield their eyes from the rising sun as they shot frantic glances at Alex.

Death was slowly approaching the politician as he sat hunched against a tree. He had actually grown quite fond of this tree in the time he had spent leaning against it, soaking it in his blood. He felt like he owed the plant an apology for dragging it into this mess. Out of the whole forest of trees that surrounded them, this tree had been chosen to support a dying man in his last hour.

That was how Hamilton felt about his whole life. Out of all the poor children his age in the Caribbean, he had been one of the few to escape. Out of all the people to die in the struggles of war, he had made it out alive. Out of all the undiscovered geniuses in the world with brighter ideas and more respectful tongues, Alexander had found people to listen to _his_ thoughts.

He felt so lonely. And lost. As though he’d mistaken the wrong path for the right one and ended up in solitude because of it.

He felt lonely.

_“I don’t know where to go, and I came here all alone.”_

So much regret washed over Hamilton at that exact moment that he physically shuddered, which took all his strength and sent sparks of pain all over his wounded area.

“Sir, we must leave the scene immediately,” he heard someone distantly shout.

“What do you mean?” Burr’s voice countered back.

“Once people hear what has happened, they will not be happy.”

“Oh really? How so?” Aaron laughed, but his chuckle was stopped short by the solemnity in his second’s voice. “W-Who would even miss Hamilton?”

“Many people, actually,” replied the man mirthlessly. “You wouldn’t believe what he’s done for this country. He’s a war hero, a famous politician, and he’s also a father and husband.”

Oh! A war _hero._ Alexander felt flattered—

_“Rumours only grow.”_

Well. A war hero who had gotten taken down by his own supposed “friend”.

Burr sighed, dragging with him a long silence to follow, during which Alexander’s breaths became uncontrollably quick and shallow. Finally, Burr spoke out, breaking the thick ice that had begun to choke the field.

“Very well.” He turned around to face his enemy one last time.

This was it. He had won… So why didn’t he feel like it? Many times Burr had dreamt of Alexander Hamilton dying and leaving him alone. And now that that had become a reality, it felt more like a dazed nightmare.

_“Prepare to bleed, good man.”_

Maybe it was Burr who hadn’t been ready for him to bleed. For Alexander to bleed. He had terrible visions of getting shot himself, but never once had the fear of Hamilton being the one to get shot crossed his mind, let alone curdle his stomach in the way it was doing now.

It was hard to come to terms with. Everything went by so fast, all in a wicked blur. One moment they had been on a boat as the sun rose over the water… the next, Alexander was keeled over, Pendleton was shouting, and a sharp regret was coating every one of his thoughts.

_“Click, boom, and it happens.”_

Alex calmly brought his bloody hand to his forehead and saluted him. Burr was taken off-guard, starting indignantly. Rather than returning the salute, he turned promptly on his heel and began to walk towards the dock where his own boat was waiting.

Hamilton scowled, but his view of Aaron’s back was obscured as Nathaniel and Dr. Hosack gathered around him, blocking the low sunlight from glaring in his eyes.

“If we get him to the water,” the doctor was telling the second, “it could help him survive. Fresh air to spark the mind.”

 _Spark the mind._ Sparks started fires, and fires blazed, and blazes terrorized people. Hamilton had always tried to defend the people and do what was best for them. He had always considered himself a spark of ingenuity… Had he burned out too quickly? Had he terrorized people?

Why hadn’t anyone stopped him? Why hadn’t he stopped himself?

_“If there’s a fire you’re trying to douse, you can’t put it out from inside of the house.”_

The scenery blurred with movement that stabbed at his side and was too quick for his melting brain to register, the grass and trees and road bleeding together until it was all blue. Hamilton blinked rapidly and looked around. He was on a boat, going over the water.

Dr. Hosack was asking him questions, but answering took energy the dying weren’t always graced with. All Hamilton could focus on was the increasing black fuzziness surrounding the spot in the sky where the sun was supposed to be.

“Why is there darkness?” he asked Nathaniel when the physician’s back was turned digging in his medical bag.

“There will always be darkness,” replied Nathaniel stiffly, grunting with each sweep of the oars over the water and refusing to meet Alexander’s unfocused eyes. “But the key is to avoid it.”

“Why avoid what will always be there?” mumbled Hamilton. “Maybe it’s waiting. Maybe it’s been there for a reason.”

“Well…” Nathaniel looked away as Dr. Hosack turned around to resume the treatment. “There’s a difference between a darkness that gets you somewhere and a darkness that hurts.”

What? What kind of darkness gets you somewhere?

_“We dream of a brand-new start, but we dream in the dark for the most part.”_

And Alexander understood. He knew what a brand-new start looked like.

He was staring it in the face.

It was dark, because that’s where it all began. In the dark. Light eliminates the dark. If it had all been bright at the beginning, there would never be room for the darkness. It had to work the other way around for there to be balance.

For there to be space. The world was wide enough for both of the elements, but only if they came in a specific order. Their brand-new start was in the dark because that’s where room for more came from.

Where there was nothing.

Alexander closed his eyes to imagine what it would be like to go back to the start, and Nathaniel watched him close his eyes and prayed that it wouldn’t be the end.

When Hamilton woke again, it was in a state of pain that had been dulled considerably from the last time he could remember. Angelica and Eliza smiled back at him, but their smiles looked like a facade. They were sitting for a portrait and smiled because they had to.

And Alexander was the painter, and he smiled because the masterpiece was almost finished.

“Alexander,” whispered Eliza, her lips played up into the lie of a smile. “You’re awake.”

Angelica broke down into tears and wrapped his shoulders in a hug. Alexander realized he was leaning on a bed, but only his upper half. Where had the rest of him gone?

It was on the bed too. Why did he have to look down to confirm that? Why couldn’t he tell his legs were there? Why did it feel like he didn’t have legs anymore?

No. Why him? Why by Burr, out of all the people he’d ever upset? Why a duel, of all ways to settle things? Why him? Why was he the one that ended up half-dead bleeding out against a tree?

“ _The pieces that are sacrificed in every game of chess.”_

And Alexander understood, but he didn’t want to. It was all a game. All of it.

And he had been sacrificed.

It hurt to just think of it. To think of himself like that. He had lost, but the game was still in play. Did that mean he didn’t matter?

Angelica pulled away, her eyes red and lip trembling. Eliza turned her back to her dying husband, sobbing quietly.

Hamilton’s throat was burning, feeling the fire of a thousand stupid things he’d said. He didn’t want to be stupid this time.

(Not like he ever had wanted to be stupid before, but looking back on his life… yeah, he had been pretty stupid.)

The fire was in his heart, beating staccato, burning him up.

“There is no beat, no melody…” Alexander wheezed with effort. “I’ve thrown away my shot… but promise you’ll remember me.”

Eliza gasped, the air freezing in her throat, the tears frozen in her eyes.

_“God help and forgive me, I want to build something that’s going to outlive me.”_

Alexander’s eyes slid to rest on his wife’s terrorized face. “Remember me,” he said, “like I could always remember my ambitions.”

Angelica was sobbing, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

_“Talk less, smile more.”_

“Remember me like I could never remember the advice I was given.”

The pain was dulling, pulling the ache from his chest.

_“Have you an ounce of regret? You accumulate debt, you accumulate power, yet in the hour of need you forget.”_

“Remember me like I could never remember others.”

The darkness was growing. No more waiting, no more dissolving in thin air.

_“Bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman.”_

“Remember me as I really was. For who I really am.”

Angelica embraces her sister in a hug, slowly patting the back of her head and muttering condolences. Hamilton realizes with empty eyes that his story is drawing to a close. The last line is punctuated with a final flutter of his heartbeat, and then just like that, it’s over.

The ink hasn’t dried. He wonders if it’s nicer on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> this was fun to write and also took me sixth months to finish wow  
> mm mm mm, I live for that good constructive criticism. hmu if you got something to say and you'll win the prize of my appreciation lmao


End file.
